I didn’t look at the Stanford application. Maybe he did complete the supplemental essays with a sincere perspective, maybe he didn’t. I don’t think we can really say at this point. What we can say is that Stanford was probably not his first choice since he applied RD. In my perspective, this means the #Black Lives Matter x100 response on his essay was not really a risk at all. I feel that the people at Stanford reviewing his essay should have recognized that.
He is clearly an accomplished student to be in contention for acceptance to Yale and Stanford, and I actually admire his perspective. He seems to know that his future isn’t tied to the approval/acceptance of a specific university. But let’s be real here. Over forty thousand kids apply to Stanford each year. I think it’s safe to say that at least thirty thousand have outstanding academic credentials that make them statistically indistinguishable from each other. To assume that anyone applying to Stanford can simply “bang out a winning application in ten minutes” is naive.
I know from your other posts that you are in no conceivable way naive, so maybe my remarks about effort were misconstrued. I don’t believe that effort alone is sufficient for a successful essay. You need to have the accomplishments to back it up. I agree with others that have posted that the essays should fit in with the application as a whole and reflect or expand on ECs, courses taken, volunteer work, etc. listed within the application. My point is that in this particular case the applicant showed no effort an no real risk taking. If you’re going to dissect the HS academic rigor, standardized test scores, EC’s, and supplemental essays for 30K qualified students, then you should absolutely consider the effort placed into the specific essay that we are discussing.